Google Glass has a lot of hype behind it. And “wearable computing” seems to be an ongoing fad in tech right now. But there’s very little reason to believe Google Glass will be anything other than yet another curiosity from Google, as far as consumers are concerned.

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve long held that Google Glass is enormously important and will have dozens of applications in the private sector. Everybody from waiters to police officers are going to have Google Glass or something like it socketed into their eyehole sooner rather than later. But as a consumer product, the very idea of Google Glass is patently ridiculous. Here are three reasons why.

1. They’re Rude

It’s not really a big secret that Google does not understand people and how they work. Look no further than the Nexus Q, which died because it was chock-full of features no human being who has ever actually been to a party wants on a music player.

Google Glass is the ultimate shield for shy, awkward nerds: Plugging a computer in your eye so you don’t have to talk with people is a dream for that guy who whispers when you talk to him at the office. However, there is a small problem in the sense that if you are talking, you know, to another person, they’re not going to be able to shake the impression you’re only somewhat paying attention, or using Glass to look up your personal records, and thus make them kind of want to slap you. Or, for that matter, that you’re not filming them right now, which brings us to the next problem.

Also: how soon after Glass becomes available to the public will someone wearing them in public be punched in the face? Our guess is probably about five minutes.

2. They Inspire Mistrust

Google’s key marketing thrust is you can photograph and film with ease! Constantly! Wherever you go! Anybody! In public! And you can record their public conversations too, and post them on the Internet! Google seems unclear that this is something only attention whores and people who have no understanding of the social contract actually want.

It’s a given that social mores and expectations of privacy need to shift: We need to have a long conversation about digital etiquette. That said, how much would you trust somebody who, on first meeting, shoves a camcorder in your face?

3. They’re Going To Cost Way Too Much

Currently Glass runs at $1500, and you need to write Google an essay about how awesome they are to get one. It seems unlikely, if not impossible, that price is going to go down very far, and frankly, if you’re buying tech for a thousand dollars, it makes more sense to buy, oh, a Nexus 4 and a Nexus 7, which will do all the same things for $500 and not make people want to deck you.

True, the Chromebook Pixel demonstrates Google has little if any comprehension of the word “market pricing”, but this is ridiculous. Asking somebody to give you $1000 to $1500 for an object that makes other people want to hit you? Not a good marketing plan, Google.

Google’s aiming to make them status symbols, but first of all, Google is not good about making an object a status symbol. Google just isn’t Apple. Secondly, it’s possible to own, say, a luxury car without being a total ass about it, but Google Glass, as we’ve noted, makes that impossible.

Google Glass is a good idea, in some ways, and we’re looking forward to how it’s used. We’re just not looking forward to the first time we have to ask somebody to lift them off their face.

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#4. They killed my Google Reader, so now I don’t trust them to provide reliable service if become attached to one of their other products. To paraphrase a former President, fool me once– fool me can’t get fooled again.

Loved the tweet from Pinboard that was basically “We need to tighten up ship. Keep the glasses, the Brazilian social network, the self-driving cars, the mobile device manufacturer. Cut the feed reader.”

What is this 2002? #1 and #2 are almost word for word what people said about cell phones and camera phones exactly. As far as #3 goes…Glass is just being field tested and Google is taking the weird step of charging for the privilege of trying it out. I don’t know if I’d be an early adopter on this but it’s certainly interesting step forward in tech and even more interesting to see how little we’ve socially around the use of new technology.

I read somewhere, maybe daringfireball, that glasses that the “punch people” aspect is really the aspect that the glasses remove the artificial wall that a phone or tablet provides. If you see someone on their phone you know you don’t have their attention, not the case with the glasses. It is the same kind of thing when you hear someone talking and think they’re talking to you but then you notice the bluetooth headset, but on a much grander scale.

That is the very thing I’m affraid of. This would create some serious sensory overload. When I’m on my bike, I’m trying to pay attnetion to the fact that I’m on an engine with handle bars doing 70 on a highway with a bunch of other vehicles that can’t see me to owell and probably being driven by someone who isn’t paying attention.

Holy hell, people can’t even drive on four wheels when they have a phone near them. Take away two wheels and put it under a helmet directly in their line of sight? Yeah, this should get sh*t-canned immediately.

Who the heck is this writer!? Must come from a very violent past because as far as i know strangers don’t usually punch you in the face if they don’t like what you’re wearing. And no, a nexus 7 or whatever you’re talking about does NOT do the same things; does it visually show you directions or text messages without having to touch a single button? NO. Can it instantly start recording events the moment you want to? NO. Why? because only Google Glass does this and you have failed to recognize its true benefits to the world. Please go back to your day job as you can’t judge something that has not even been released yet. Is that fair?

Strangers may not punch you if they don’t like what you’re wearing, but if they do like what you’re wearing they may stab you and take it. And seriously, I may stab you on principle if you’re going to parade around with one of these obnoxious things on your face.

Like I said, Google Glass is very important to the private sector. Police and first responders alone are likely to have it or something very much like it on their face. Lawyers are likely to be issued them the first day at the firm. And so on.

I feel like you skipped the part about the mistrust and assumed the article was about punching people in the face for wearing stupid looking shit. Despite the fact that you would look like a giant douche, like just about every person who keeps their blue tooth clipped to their ear when they aren’t using it, your appearance isn’t the issue here. The fact that talking to someone wearing the glasses is akin to speaking to someone who has their camera-phone shoved in your face the entire time, finger hovering over the record button, is the issue.

Walk up to some people with your phone out, and aim it at them as you strike up a conversation. Let’s see if this is really an issue of the author having a “violent past.”

Re: not wanting to be decked. For a future glimpse at what Google Glass will cause, it’s worth reading what happened to inventor Steve Mann in July 2012 at a McDonald’s in France while he was wearing an eye camera/computer device of his own design:

I don’t think it was right for the three men to threaten him and use physical harm. But I also don’t think it’s right to have a camera on your face wherever you go, in public, taking pictures of everyone.

Heh….wonder how long it will be after these are released before we’re in the timeline of “Strange Days” where you can buy POV footage of someone’s suicide or someone killing or fucking someone else on the black market? And I don’t mean like the camera-phone stuff like today…I mean like, transfer from Glasses-to-Glasses so that you actually feel like you’re THERE doing that, or seeing it be done.

Actually, since you asked, there are many situations in which I have wanted to deck somebody on a cell phone. Usually they center around either having an obnoxiously personal conversation in public or being a dickhead to a cashier.

However, I live in a pretty rude and entitled section of the country, and even the shithead who parks his car across two spaces and blocks the entire aisle at the store? He hangs up when he gets to the cashier.

All i’m seeing and reading here is a bunch of jealous poor faggots that have anger problems because you want punch people wearing glasses, jesus fucking christ get off your high horse and think about it for a second. It’s not like these glasses are going to ruin the world, so think before you speak, and right now the glasses are $1000-$1500 BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT MASS PRODUCED, once they’re able to mass produce these and sell them in every store, they’re going to be around $300, which is reasonable, so all you butthurt angry jocks out there can sit the fuck down because you’re just making yourselves look like dumbasses.

Most people I know gave up contacts a long time ago because of the common sense involved with shoving shity into your eyes. People that swear by contacts are normally the ones that wear non-prescription contacts.

As a life long eyeglass wearer, I agree. Shoving something into my eye doesn’t work for me. I probably “can” wear them, but I don’t want to wear them because I cannot fathom sticking my finger and a sliver of plastic into my eye.

Even though hjs has pointed out that there are alternatives that “could” be used, I contend that hjs is a child, or has the common sense of one when presented with a problem. Someone should tell his/her mom that he/she’s on the internet unsupervised and let her buy them a trophy for participating.

Exactly ^ I found it especially comical when Sergy at Ted said that phones are “emasculating”…. These glasses should be called BC glasses as in Birth Control glasses, because no woman will give you a second thought if you a douche enough to wear them.

Dan Seitz , u r going to be one of the first to buy Google Glass :P And Apple a status symbol … bitch please ! Apple is living in his own little world while Google is open for everyone and combining Apple, Android and Co.

Google glass will be just like the Segway. All hype, only worn by single dweebs typically found in basement that, as the author correctly asserts, don’t realize that they don’t look “cool”, but look like the uber douches that wear blue tooth ear sets no matter the occasion.

Cost: Taken from the NY Times 1989 (486 computer)
NCR is among several companies that have already announced they are in the race to sell the first 80486-based systems. For prices expected to be $10,000 to $20,000, the computers are believed to be capable of performing on the same scale as minicomputers costing several times as much.

They will drop in price eventually. It’s new get over the price and have some vision.

You have no vision for the future. Sure this might end up being a flop but what can we learn from this and make it something better. Sure glasses are nothing new and neither is Google but the idea of having access to information like this to quote Spock “Fascinating”

If the world was left to people like yourself and some of the comments on here the “Wheel” would have never been invented.